Insomniac's Moon
by SSMcPriceley
Summary: McPriceley. Drama multi-chapter. McKinley has always had to care for Price, and Price has always had to care for McKinley. It's amazing how two utterly broken people manage to be so whole together. Future McPriceley piecing together their past and fighting to stay together and keep that future. Thanks to itsalatterdaytomorrow for the inspiration, tw eating disorders.
1. Chapter 1

"Why are you so sad?"

"I squashed a pregnant cockroach when I was ten and cried for an hour."

Connor had been trying to fill an awkward silence, thrust into the room by Kevin Price, who for the most of the last week had taken to staring at walls and going for long walks wishing for rain. There was a time when a remark like this might have got him to laugh, but Kevin had been acting so distant lately nearly every tiny thing set him off.

"What would make you happy?"

Kevin shrugged, making a non-descript 'mmm'ing sound.

It took all his strength just to stand up. He left Connor by himself in the living room of their perfect little blue home crammed in between two much taller houses on a suburban terrace, a white picket gate out front, a dog in the backyard, a ring on just the right finger. Connor tried not to take it too personally.

He decided to give his husband some space. Maybe it had been a bad day at the office, or maybe the weather forecast was sun. He found Kevin almost an hour later, crouched by a cardboard box in the attic. Kevin had been sorting through the papers and photos crinkled by the damp, a pile beginning to form next to him.

Connor laid a hand on Kevin's shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. He didn't really have to tell Kevin he was there, his husband had sensed his presence, the air around him stirred by small clouds of dust kicked up by Connor's careful footfalls.

"How did you know?"

"How did I know what?"

"That it was pregnant."

"It had one of those looks."

"Ah yes of course, the pregnant cockroach look."

"Do you remember this?"

Kevin held out a photo he'd taken out the box. The familiar faces, statically smiling up at him, made Connor feel an immense pang of nostalgia. The pair of them were there, looking literally ten years younger, arms carelessly slung around each other' waists, as were the rest of district nine.

"Gosh you look good..."

Kevin instinctively smiled at the compliment, his vain nineteen year old self shining through.

"Now I'm just worrying about my receding hairline," Connor said, running a paranoid hand through his hair which looked pretty much exactly the same as it did in the photo.

Connor silently shook his head as he saw nine unruly non-regulation hair cuts, which meant a photo taken post-excommunication. Ten bright smiles, not a care in the world, saving lives, taking care of each other, just being happy. The black and white uniformed men stood out against the yellow sulfurous cloud behind them. None of them had been sure what it was, but one day a strange bright yellow cloud of fumes had drifted out over the lake.

Like most nineteen year olds, the need to capture this moment outweighed the high probability of this cloud being dangerous and highly toxic. Which of course it had been.

The next day, Connor was dealing with his fellow elders throwing up furiously in their very small and only bathroom. Fond memories, he could almost smell it, the dust, the heat, the sweat, the fumes of that cloud that might have turned him blind. In a way it had all been worth it.

* * *

><p>"I could hold your hair back?"<p>

"Go away Elder Mc-"

The rest of Elder Price's choked sentence was interrupted, and Elder McKinley winced from the other side of the bathroom door as he listened to the retching inside. Pressing his ear against the wood he tutted sympathetically and went back to the kitchen to soak some more flannels in cold water. After dropping one off to every elder, half of them asleep, the other half writhing in their fevered sheets, he returned to the bathroom.

"Elder Price...? Kevin...?"

He tentatively turned the door handle.

Kevin was kneeling on the bathroom floor, tie loosened, breathing heavily.

"Kevin? I've made your bed, and some tea, and I have some nice cold flannels. Please just come to bed."

Elder McKinley knelt down beside Kevin and felt his forehead. "It doesn't look like you have much of a temperature, you'll be fine in the morning."

"In the morning?"

"Yes, in the morning," Elder McKinley affirmed, concerned at the deliriousness in Kevin's voice. His eyes were closed, and despite the lack of rising temperature he didn't look exactly well.

"Please come lie down." Elder McKinley gave him a reassuring nudge, he didn't seem to want to move.

Putting an arm around Kevin's shoulders and another under the crook in his knees, Elder McKinley carefully lifted Kevin. He was surprised at how light he was, it was barely an effort to lift him at all. Maneuvering the door with his foot, Kevin was carried by his district leader to his bedroom and then gently laid down on top of the sheets. A flannel was wrung out and placed over his forehead, then Elder McKinley tip-toed softly to the door.

"If you need anything, I'll be right next door."

Elder McKinley knew that he'd be pulling an all-nighter just to make sure that all his boys made it over the back of the fever in as much comfort as possible, but he was prepared and willing to do that for them.

"Elder McKinley?"

The voice was so soft and quiet, barely travelling across the darkness to the doorway.

"Yes?"

"Will you stay here tonight?"

"I'll be right next door don't you worry."

"No, I mean...here."

"Oh."

Elder McKinley glanced to the lightly snoring form of Elder Cunningham in the bed next to Kevin's. He went back over to the bed and sat on the edge, picking up the flannel and lightly dabbing at Kevin's forehead. It didn't take long for him to drift off, involuntarily nuzzling into Elder McKinley's lap in his sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Elder McKinley was holding Kevin's hand under a stream of cold water. With a cotton bud and some antiseptic he began to dab at the areas of Kevin's skin where it had been rubbed raw, the worst areas around the knuckles of his index and middle finger.

"I still don't understand how you managed it," Elder McKinley tutted as he shook his head.

"It was an accident."

"Yes, you said."

Elder McKinley held Kevin's wrist firmly as he wrapped a compression bandage around his fingers. Kevin held his hand up to look at the district leader's work, then let his hand fall limply back down. He hadn't even winced once as the alcohol based disinfectant had stung, or even when Elder McKinley had first noticed the sore redness on the back of his hand.

"Stung. Some African plant. I think. Maybe. I can't remember I must have brushed against something."

And then Elder McKinley, being the man that he was, had insisted that he clean and take care of it. Kevin admired this caring nature, but every moment in the bathroom while Elder McKinley tended to him had made him hate it. Nothing slipped past him, the good or the bad.

"I'll ask Mafala if he's seen it, he might know if it's poisonous."

"No it's ok."

"Not if someone else catches themselves on it, one injured elder at a time please, I can't handle more than one." Elder McKinley laughed and took Kevin's took hand from where it was dangling by his side.

He gave the palm a small, reassuring squeeze and smiled at his handiwork. "Hopefully it will all be better soon. I'll warn everyone else to keep an eye out so no one else gets into this mess."

"You don't have to."

"Kevin, I do."

"Please don't."

Elder McKinley sighed, and tried to decipher Kevin's expression.

* * *

><p>"Kevin? Are you awake?"<p>

Kevin was staring at the ceiling, unable to make out anything in the dark, but his eyes were open all the same.

He always thought it was strange, that even without moving a single muscle, Connor could still tell when he wasn't asleep.

"Mmm," He replied.

He felt a hand slide across his stomach and Connor draw himself in close, a pair of knees curled up against the side of his body. He knew what this meant. They were about to have; A Talk.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You haven't been sleeping."

"How do you even know that?"

"I always know when you're awake, because when you're asleep darling, you snore."

Kevin rolled his eyes and wrapped his arm around Connor's shoulders, glad to have a warm body pressed in close to his.

"I was just thinking about some of those photos, and remembering...things."  
>"It was a long time ago." Connor's tone that had been concerned, but almost playful, had changed. It sounded anxious, serious, wanting to steer Kevin away from remembering the things that he'd clearly chosen to remember at this moment.<p>

"You tried so hard to care for me." Kevin's voice cracked in the darkness and instantly Connor was holding him tighter. "Even when you had no idea what was going on, why?"

"I figured you'd let me know in your own time what was wrong. In the meantime it was just my job to take care of you, so I did, no questions asked."

* * *

><p>'Tell him.'<p>

The voice in his head just wasn't going away this time. Pacing the floor up and down, Elder McKinley just metres away in the next room, the other elders out proselytizing, it would be so easy just to take a few moments to explain.

He dug his nails into his palms, bit his lip until it was sore, blinked until frustrated tears came out. Still he hadn't moved from his room, the sky outside had turned orange, and it was the end of another day and the opportunity had gone.

The kitchen was full of elders, hungry after a whole day's proselytizing.

"Want me to make you something Kevin?" Arnold asked eagerly, keen to show off any new skill that Elder McKinley had taught him.

"No thanks, I ate earlier." Kevin smiled at his companion, who didn't appear too crestfallen, then went into the living room to find Elder McKinley.

"Elder McKinley I just-..."

"Ah Elder Price! Just who I wanted to see."

Kevin bit his lip.

"I was going to ask you earlier, but I've been so busy." Hand on one hip, the other running through his hair, he looked the definition of flustered. "There's a hole in the roof and there's something beginning to make a nest in it. I've only just managed to catch it. I'd do it myself, but you know, I'm a bit scared of heights."

"No problem."

"Would you be able to do it now? Before the sun sets maybe?"

"Sure."

Ten minutes later and Kevin was using the last of the sun to nail some planks across the whole in the roof. It wasn't hard work. After ejecting the jumping spider and cleaning up its home the rest had been simple.

"Elder Price?"

Kevin looked down over the ledge to see Elder McKinley looking up at him. "Almost done?"

"Almost." Kevin nodded. "Come have a look."

"No thanks, I'll take your word for it."

"Heights?"

"Heights."

There was a pause, the silence broken only the crickets and the soft wind brushing through the dry reeds.

"I bought you some water, in case you were thirsty."

"Well, you'd better come up here and give it to me."

Elder McKinley raised an unamused eyebrow.

"Go on, try, it's not that high."

Elder McKinley put a tentative foot on the first rung of the ladder propped against the building. Gripping tightly he made it up three rungs before stopping and deciding it was too high. He was about to climb the three rungs back down again when a hand appeared in his line of vision.

"Come on, I'll help you up."

Elder McKinley took it and was surprised that Kevin could pretty much lift him the rest of the way onto the roof.

"Don't worry I've got you."

Elder McKinley stumbled as soon as he stood upright and let out a terrified gasp, but Kevin quickly reached out to grab his waist and pull him back. Once he felt safe and secure, comfortable that Kevin was there holding onto him, he looked out across the village.

"Oh my gosh, it's so beautiful."

It was just the right time to watch the sun set over the lake, orange glows cast across the waters and on their faces. Then, the light was gone.

"If you wait, you'll start to see the stars."

Kevin was right. In the middle of this African village in the middle of nowhere the sky was so clear and every star was vivid and bright.

They probably stood there for too long for it not to seem suspicious to the other elders below, but for both of them it was impossible to move while pinioned down to the rooftop by the stars.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been Arnold's idea to go camping.

A really stupid idea.

Well, at least in Kevin's mind it was.

Connor had been all for it, suddenly piles of hiking gear were appearing on their bed as he packed for the pair of them.

"Was this in the attic?" Kevin asked as he pulled out a pair of high tech gortex socks that looked so specific in their purpose that their presence in his house was a total mystery.

"Some of it. I used to go camping all the time with my family and this stuff's been tucked away for years."

"This doesn't exactly look like family summer holiday material."

"My family was pretty intense about it." Connor smiled serenely at his memory while Kevin grimaced. Connor noticed the look and sighed. "It's only for a few days."

"A week!"

"Seven days then."

"And just how are you going to climb a mountain 'Mr Scared of Heights?"

"I'm not scared of heights," Connor scoffed. "Not really."

Kevin rolled his eyes and started folding some clothes to help put in the bag. His mind drifted to the thought of seven days in the middle of nowhere, no wifi, just Arnold, Connor, and Nabulungi to keep him company. Come to think of it, the idea didn't sound so unfamiliar after all. Still, it was different for a nineteen year old to be living rough than a professional man in his thirties.

Kevin picked up something that Connor had placed on the pile of things to be packed. "Bandanas? Are you serious? What are you trying to be?"

"Bandanas are cool, Kevin."

"Bandanas are never cool on a thirty-two year old man."

"Don't be jealous of my boogie."

Kevin snorted. "Is this your midlife crisis? Camping and bandanas? Is this what I have to deal with from now on?"

"Maybe if you tried you could enjoy it. Or is enjoying being with your friends beyond you?"

Kevin looked up into the disbelieving eyes of his husband. Well now he'd just have to have a good time, just to spite Connor.

* * *

><p>The person who'd decided to give Arnold a polaroid camera should be full of regret and remorse Kevin thought as Arnold thrust it in his face, flashing it three times in quick succession. And that person would be Kevin Price himself, flashbacks of Christmas 2017 resurfacing.<p>

"Day one! The adventure begins! Stuck in the middle of nowhere!" Arnold shouted dramatically, continuing to take pictures of anything and everything, excitedly documenting trip.

"We can still see the parking lot, Arnold." Nabulungi said, smiling nonetheless.

"We can?" Kevin asked, looking back desperately. "But, we've been walking for ages?"

"About ten minutes." Connor rolled his eyes. They almost disappeared under a red bandana that he'd tied over his forehead. Was it to fit in with the Spring Break teenagers carrying their bags towards the lake? To look like he wasn't going through a midlife crisis? To look…cool? Either way, Kevin decided that the red clashed horribly with his hair, and that the red bandana was going to have to find its way into a large body of water, eaten by a wild animal, or perhaps up a tree, sooner rather than later.

"It's only going to take a couple of hours to get to the site I was thinking of." Arnold was staring at a map, his tongue stuck out to one side, a look of intense concentration furrowing his brow. Nabulungi reached over and tried to subtly flip the map right side up so the other two men wouldn't see.

"A couple of hours!"

"As you can see," Connor said. "Convincing him to come on this trip was a struggle."

"We can stop somewhere sooner," Nabulungi suggested, glancing over at Arnold to get his approval.

"No it has to be here." Arnold pointed to the crude X on the map.

"Why?"

"I can't tell you."

"Oh goodie," Kevin said sarcastically before being whacked in the stomach by Connor's hiking pole.

* * *

><p>Less than two hours, but still many blisters later, Arnold proudly declared that they had arrived.<p>

"It looks exactly the same as everywhere else." Kevin was hopping from foot to foot, trying to relieve some of the pressure.

"Then maybe we're not there yet, maybe we should keep walking?"

"No no, this is just fine." Nabulungi took her backpack off and placed it defiantly on the forest floor, marking it as their territory.

Connor and Kevin gratefully took theirs off too and began to roll their shoulders.

Arnold, though slightly despondent and still glancing hopefully at the map as if it might suddenly reveal a glowing path, sat down on a nearby log.

It didn't take long to set up their tents and create a space safe enough to light a fire. Connor hung some lanterns on the branches in preparation for the sunset.

They sat on the logs surrounding the fire pit and stared into it for a moment.

"Now what?"

"This is camping Kevin."

"It sucks."

"Shhhh, it's not that bad."

"My feet hurt and I'm hungry and I think I just saw a giant spider."

"Reminds me of home, especially the spiders." Nabulungi smiled wryly. "Just add some heat."

Things picked up now that they were all sitting down. The four of them hadn't been together or a while and they were reminded at just how easy it was to laugh with each other and swap stories, old and new.

Soon the mosquitoes were beginning to hum and the only light came from the fire embers and their small torches.

"See you in the morning," Arnold said cheerfully as he disappeared into his tent.

"If the bears don't get us first," Kevin mumbled.

Kevin could feel almost every object from the forest floor digging into his back. Even with the puffy sleeping bag he thought he could sense something crawling around underneath the tent material. Connor wormed towards Kevin, looking like a strange sock creature in his sleeping bag. Kevin didn't like being separated like this.

"It's not that bad," Connor said firmly, for what felt like the thousandth time that day.

Kevin didn't even have to say anything in return, his expression did that for him.

"It's nice that we can see the stars out here." Connor was trying to change tactic.

"I got bored of stars in Uganda. After a few nights they got kind of…samey."

Connor sighed. "There's no pleasing some people."

He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. Kevin tried putting his arm around him, but it soon got cold from being outside the sleeping bag. It was an uncomfortable night, and only six more to go.

Kevin was woken up by some kind of unusual screeching. He could have killed that bird with his bare hands if it meant another few hours sleep. His watch, the only technology that seemed to be working so far out in the wilderness, told him it was just before 5am.

Connor was still asleep, snuggled into his sleeping back and breathing evenly. Kevin had managed to shake all his covers off him in the night.

Trying to avoid moving as much as possible, which was hard when he couldn't stand up, he unzipped the tent and greeted the cold morning. He wouldn't stroll very far, he didn't want to get lost.

The small clearing was surrounded by thick trees, so he picked a direction and began walking. It was less than five minutes before the trees began to thin and he saw out into a massive canyon. The sun had finished rising, but it was still casting a beautiful orange across the sand colored rock.

A noise down to his left startled him, but he quickly deciphered them as human noises. Slipping slightly as the grass sloped down, he saw the back of Nabulungi's head bent low into a bush.

"Nabalungi?"

She jumped and turned to look at him, like a rabbit in headlights. She quickly gained her composure and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Kevin! You're up early."

"You too."

There was a moment's silence.

"Hey, are you ok?" Kevin asked. Never someone to pick up even the most blatant clues, he could tell that something was up.

"Yeah, fine. I was just a bit sick, probably that vacuum-packed food." She laughed nervously.

The whole scenario was giving Kevin an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. Everyone seemed to look back on Uganda with such nostalgia, but he didn't. It hadn't been a bundle of laughs for him. At least not for the most part.

"We can see how Connor and Arnold are feeling when they wake up, let's hope it's nothing that means we have to head home." Kevin was secretly, and selfishly, hoping that it was. He could heroically carry a Connor with a stomach bug through the woods and back home to their technologically advanced house and a bed that actually had a mattress. The idea was quite attractive.

"No! I mean, no, no. It's ok, we don't have to tell them. I don't want to worry them."

"But if it's serious then-"

"It's not. Well…a bit." She looked over her shoulder carefully. "Look, Kevin, can you keep a secret?"

"Better than most."

"I'm pregnant."

She blurted it out so suddenly that Kevin didn't have time to react. What could he say? He'd just gone mute.

"Oh my gosh, are you angry?"

Kevin realized he'd been silent for a moment too long.

"Angry? God no! I'm-…That's-…It's amazing Nabulungi, I'm so happy for you, for both of you." The words made him think of Arnold, sleeping in his tent. "Does he know?"

"No, not yet. I only just found out myself, on the morning we left. It was stupid of me not to call off the trip, but he was so excited."

"Are you ok with walking?"

"I'm pregnant, not ill. I'll be fine. More than fine."

Kevin looked out at the expanse of rock, still rapidly changing color as the sun moved into its position in the sky to start the day.

"Do you think this is what Arnold wanted us to find? This canyon?"

"Maybe. It looks like it goes down or miles, imagine if we dropped something down there, we'd never get it back."

Kevin looked at her, cogs in his mind turning slowly. Then he bolted back towards the camp.

"Kevin! Where are you going?"

Kevin ran as fast as he could, almost tripping on a fallen branch, before arriving at their camp. His steps became softer as he crept towards his and Connor's tent. He moved the zip at a snail's pace, reaching in for his goal. His hands clasped on something and he slowly withdrew his hand.

He had just made his slow and steady way back to the edge of the trees when he heard a rustling behind him. Connor was emerging from the tent, sleepy-eyed and confused.

"Kevin? Where are you-? What? What are you doing with my-? Kevin! You bring that back right now!"

Kevin sprinted back towards the canyon, heart beating fast as he made it there in just over thirty seconds, triumphantly clutching the red bandana in his hand. Nabulungi was still sitting on the grass when he returned. She saw immediately what he was doing.

"Oh Kevin, you know he'll kill you."

Kevin felt an overwhelming sense of relief and ecstasy as he watched the bandana flutter down into the depths of the canyon. Like a beacon of all that was evil in the world, descending to its fate. He didn't even care when he heard Connor's stumbling feet and curses catch up to him, he just smiled. For the first time in a long time; it had been a good morning.


End file.
